Everlastin' Book 1 (19 page)

The smell of
food.

She looked down at her
grumbling stomach and made a wry face.

Lighting one of the candles
on the mantel, she made her way down to the kitchen, favoring the
weakness remaining in her left leg. The uncanny quietude of the
house seemed always more so at night, but she refused to give in to
her fears. To do so would only invite another headache.

A tomato, lettuce and ham
sandwich and a large glass of milk quelled the ache in her stomach.
All the while she ate she peered about the kitchen, halfheartedly
studying the shadowy recesses that lay beyond the perimeter of the
candlelight's soft, flickering glow. She wasn't sure how she knew
it, but Lachlan wasn't in the house. That was all right, she told
herself. She was getting used to being alone. Sometimes it was less
complicated than being in his presence.

She needed to get away and
try to put everything in perspective. Lachlan would have to
understand it was important to her that she know without a doubt
that his love was not mere infatuation. And she needed to sit back
and analyze her feelings toward him. The atmosphere in the house,
her vulnerability, the strong attraction she felt toward Lachlan,
didn't necessarily add up to love.

Maybe she was expecting too
much.

Feeling drained, she tidied
up the kitchen. She was at the far end of the secondary hall when
she heard a sound from within the parlor. Opening the door, she was
first aware of a roaring fire in the hearth. The room was warm and
cozy, owning of none of the damp chill she'd felt in the
kitchen.

“Lachlan?” she called,
placing the candle in an empty holder on the mantel.

Her gaze lifted to the
portrait above the fireplace, and her nose wrinkled expressively.
There was no disputing Carlene's talent as an artist, but the
painting unnerved Beth. It was definitely her face on the canvas,
but Carlene had added elements of color and refinement that Beth
didn't see in herself when she looked in the mirror. The face and
bearing of the woman above her was that of someone in love with
life and nature, a woman who had never known pain or suffering or
sacrifice.

“I'm not you,” she
whispered, an ache in her heart because she was not that person
Carlene had portrayed.

A sharp pain snapped in the
back of her neck, setting off an explosion in her head. Her eyes
widened in fear. She swayed on her feet. Bursts of colors flashed
before her fading vision.

“Oh God,” she
whimpered.
Not another attack so
soon!

She could feel the blood in
her veins slowing with every loud, strained thud of her heart, its
beat lessening, winding down, warning her that the mechanics in her
body had reached a crucial point.

Pain radiated through her
chest and down her left arm. Her left leg went dead beneath her
then the arm became leaden and impossible to move from her side.
She struggled to catch her breath, her lungs afire with the
strain.

Something cold and feathery
passed through her. Her heart was given a jolt, a surge of energy.
She could hear the organ's beat strengthening, crescendoing in her
ears.

Stifling a cry, she gripped
the mantel with her right hand and closed her eyes for a moment. A
fey coldness swept around and through her, again and again. A
draft, she reasoned, but every nerve in her body was throbbing from
the experience. She was dimly aware of pain trying to make itself
known to her consciousness, but her concentration was on the tides
of coldness lapping against her, swelling over and crashing down on
her.

Something brushed against
her ankles, her calves. Startled, she gaped down at the hemline of
her skirt as it swayed to and fro against her legs.

Her breathing quickened,
wheezing through her constricting throat. She wanted to run and
climb beneath the quilt on her bed and pull it over her head to
shut out the madness. But her legs felt too heavy to
move.

The house is drafty, but
this—

Another explosion of pain
ensued, this time in the back of her head. Her legs began to give
out from beneath her as a curtain of darkness descended over her
mind. But then the coldness slipped within the entire length of her
body, filling her completely and reawakening her senses. Revived
once again, she homed in on what seemed like a chilling, invisible
hand moving up along her inner thigh.

Gasping, she clenched the
mantel's edge so tightly her knuckles turned white. The unearthly
cold set off the beginning of a sensation that was igniting
something fierce and hot within her loins. The caresslike
phenomenon climbed higher, so gentle, so enchanting, so purposeful.
Her body quivered, and she gasped again as her skirt began to lift
to her hips.

Tears sprang to her eyes,
but it was a near-hysterical laugh that gurgled from her throat as
she bit into her lower lip and dipped her head back. Although a
frosty mist enveloped her, she was beyond feeling the bite of its
coldness.

Pulses were detonating in
every part of her body, maddening, awakening sensations that held
her captive. Stroking hands and kisses could be felt on every part
of her body. She groaned, the cords in her neck distending as her
head dipped back even lower. Her hair whipped about her face.
Breaths of air moved across her throat, lingered at her lips, then
shifted and ran down her spine, her buttocks, and the back of her
thighs.

Phantom teeth playfully
nipped at one ankle, then the other. Hands, like smooth ice, moved
over her calves.

Panting, she locked her
teeth. Kisses moved up one leg in circles and on one inner
thigh.

“Oh God,” she
sobbed.

She experienced a probing
movement along the crotch of her panties. For a fleeting moment,
her mind revolted, but then the fey stimulus swept her into a fiery
responsiveness that shunned her instinctual inhibitions.
Nothingness touched and caressed her, kissed and pampered her,
awakened and demanded her gratification.

Nothingness?

She'd never felt so alive!
So aroused!

A searing, quivering
sensation of liquid fire burst inside the valley of her thighs and
spread to the very ends of her fingers and toes. She cried out at
its startling swiftness. Her legs began to tremble, threatening to
give out beneath her. The climax was more powerful than anything
she'd ever experienced. Even its aftermath sensations were robbing
her of strength.

Her brow beaded with
perspiration, Beth slowly turned her head and looked through glazed
eyes at the candle on the table. It seemed a very long ways off in
her state of mind.

Breathing heavily, she
momentarily laid her brow between her hands on the mantel. The
coldness had vanished as unexpectedly as it had arrived.

Summoning up a reserve of
strength, she snatched up the candle. Cupping her hand in front of
the flame, she staggered from the room. When she arrived at her
bedroom, she stopped but a moment to notice that there was no light
beneath Lachlan's door then hurried into her room. Placing the
candle back on the mantel, she sprinted across the floor and flung
herself atop the bed.

She was beneath the covers,
about to lie down, when she noticed that the fire in the hearth was
well-stoked.

Not again!

A whimper rattled in her
throat as she rested a cheek upon her pillow. This was surely
madness, and it frightened her. A single tear escaped the corner of
her eye and puddled on the side of her nose. She swiped it across
her cheek with the back of a hand and pulled the top covers up over
her head.

She was cold, colder than
she ever believed was possible in a human being. Her blood was like
ice; her heart was racing as if was about to explode. She was
conscious of pain, but it was a surrealistic rendition of what her
logic told her it should be.

One way or the other, she
was going to find a telephone in the morning, and she was going to
have her return tickets changed.

She had to get away from
Baird House before she lost herself within it.

If it wasn't already too
late.

C
hapter 7

Beth's eyelids opened
fractionally. From the window across the room, a bright shaft of
sunlight filtered through the panes to fall across her
bed.

It was morning.

Yawning, she ran her fingers
through her hair, lazily scratched her scalp and opened her eyes
fully. She felt more rested than she had in years. Sitting up, she
peered about the room through an expression of utter contentment.
The usual growling of her stomach wasn't there to nudge her to seek
breakfast. She didn't feel hungry at all.

The top covers were flipped
aside and she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was
about to slide off the mattress when she noticed she was still
wearing yesterday's clothing. A little chuckle at herself died in
her throat as memory of what had happened in the parlor last night
came home with shocking clarity.

“It was a dream,” she
murmured, her expression growing stormier by the moment. “A very
real—
creepy
—dream.”

A far off sound distracted
her. Looking at the window, she concentrated on what the low,
intermittent buzzing implied. Then it struck her. The new
groundskeeper!

What was his
name...?

Borgie!

Her heart began to race. The
sound could only mean he was working on the grounds. It also meant
she had a means to get into town and find a telephone.

Fueled by a sense of
desperation, she hurriedly splashed water on her face, brushed her
teeth and ran a brush haphazardly through her hair. Then, lacing up
her sneakers and tucking her purse beneath an arm, she lit out of
the room as if the devil was at her heels. The stairs passed
swiftly under her feet. Hugging her purse to her breast now, she
turned left on the first floor landing and beelined for the
door.

Lachlan stepped into the
hall from the kitchen in time to see a figure slam open the doors
to the front of the house and run into the morning mist beyond. It
took several moments before the scene registered in his mind then a
look of consternation ravaged his features.

The tea towel in his hand
fluttered to the floor.

“Beth! No, Beth! Come
back!”

Muttering a string of Gaelic
invectives, he ran after her, but the instant he tried to pass the
threshold to the greenhouse, he felt himself slammed by an
invisible force. He staggered back several paces, incredulity
deeply carved on his handsome face. He couldn't begin to imagine
what he'd walked into until he looked down at himself and realized
he was fading. At that moment, he didn't possess the energy to
break through the sepulchral boundaries of his nether world
existence.

Fury mottled his features.
His fiercely brooding dark eyes looked in the direction Beth had
gone, and desperation quaked through the remaining fibers of his
being.

The sound of the hedge
trimmer harshly echoed through the house, growing louder by the
moment.

Borgie. Beth was running
to
Borgie
for
help.

Oh, sweet Jesus, wha’ have
I done?

“Come back!” he wailed.
“You....”

The last word eerily
reverberated in the hall as he completely vaporized. But an
aftermath of his emotional turbulence lingered. Touched upon by the
rage of his momentary helplessness, brass urns and knick-knacks,
wooden figurines and display tiles braced up on the mantelpiece,
began to whip through the hall and bang one wall after
another.

* * *

Beth was only dimly aware of
the commotion behind her. Locked onto the sounds of the hedge
trimmer, she ran through wet grass and brush with all the force she
possessed.

No one was going to stop her
from getting on the next flight to the States—not Agnes, not
Borgie, not Carlene or David, and especially not
Lachlan!

If she had to get down on
her knees and beg Borgie to take her into town, she was determined
to do just that. And if he refused, she would walk until she found
a telephone.

The loud bussing sound cut
abruptly.

She staggered to slow her
breakneck run as the stillness of her surroundings filled her once
again with a terrible sense of isolation. Panic formed a fist in
her throat. Tears sprang to her eyes. Stopping amidst the
fog-mantled row of rhododendrons along the private access road, she
anxiously searched for a sign of the groundskeeper.

Not again!
she mutely lamented.

People couldn't just vanish!
She was closing in on the sound just a moment ago.

“Mr. Ingliss?”

A cry from a peacock perched
atop the highest rooftop of the house, caused Beth to flinch. She
glared in the bird's direction, a pulse drumming wildly beneath
every part of her skin. “Mr. Ingliss! Are you here?”

Heaving a sigh of
frustration, she walked along the row of flowering hedges, stopping
short when a peacock suddenly appeared in front of her and fanned
its tail feathers. The bird’s appearance was startling enough, but
the fact that it stood determinedly in her path, brazenly staring
at her as if issuing a silent challenge, sent a chill clawing up
her spine.